Origin of Chess

There are different unproven stories about how the chess game was found. One among them is as follows. An emperor was very sad about demise of his son in a war. To divert the king’s mind, a wise man in his court, created the game of chess. That game proved the kind that to win a war we may have to do some sacrifices and the king resumed to normal life.

Another unproven but frequently repeated story goes like this. In India, in 600 AD in Guptha’s empire people were addicted, to a gambling game based on the number shown by a thrown-dice. People lost lot of wealth and time in this gambling. To divert them from gambling the King Bilhait asked a Saint Sissa to create a game which depend on human mental skills like Prudence, foresight, valour, judgement, endurance, circumspection and analytical skill. According to the request the Saint Sissa created game of Chess with 8 x 8 = 64 squares and four bodies of ancient army like Elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers and he named it CHATURANGA (Meaning four bodies).

The game became famous and spread to Persia (Iran). When Arabs conquered Persia, the game went to Muslim kingdoms in 7th Century. In 8th Century it spread to Spain when Muslim kings conducted war on Spain. From then the game spread throughout Europe. In 1500 AD chess game and pieces transformed to the Modern Chess which is played today.